Author Archives: Duane Caldwell

About Duane Caldwell

Duane has served in many different capacities including pastor, elder, project coordinator and flight instructor. He is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ by the Evangelical Church Alliance and holds a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a Trinity International University school and a BS in Aeronautics from Parks College, St. Louis University.

Q.51 Has the bible changed over time?

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Scroll of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum - click for video

Scroll of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum – click for video

The unabbreviated question, given as a statement is: “The Bible we have now has been changed over and over again in the centuries since it was written.”

“The Bible we have now” consists of 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.  The Old and New Testaments span different eras, so, as is conventionally done, I will handle them separately. But as we’ll see, the conclusion for both will be the same. The Bible we have today is true to God’s word and has not been changed “over and over”, nor at all in the centuries since it was written. Continue Reading

Q.39 Does God have an ego problem?

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The Parable of the Pearl of great worth Matthew 13.45-46

The Parable of the Pearl of great worth Matthew 13.45-46

100 Questions

Question 29: How could God send anyone to eternal torture?

Question: What’s wrong with your God’s ego that he needs people praising and worshiping him all the time?

As I considered these two questions it became increasingly clear that these two items—the first about eternal torture and the second about worship and eternal praise—are really opposite sides of the same coin. That coin being the exceeding excellence, glory, majesty, beauty, value, goodness and awesome power of God. In other words, these two things—eternal punishment and eternal worship—are the necessary and appropriate response of each person to the exceeding greatness and goodness of God. That being the case, it’s not surprising that those who do not know God and have absolutely no idea how exceedingly great he is[1] cannot understand either aspect concerning Him.

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Q.29 How could God send anyone to eternal torture?

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A vision: heaven and hell

A vision: heaven and hell

100 Questions

Question 29: How could God send anyone to eternal torture?

Question 39: What’s wrong with your God’s ego that he needs people praising and worshiping him all the time?

As I considered these two questions it became increasingly clear that these two items—the first about eternal torture and the second about worship and eternal praise—are really opposite sides of the same coin. That coin being the exceeding excellence, glory, majesty, beauty, value, goodness and awesome power of God. In other words, these two things—eternal punishment and eternal worship—are the necessary and appropriate response of each person to the exceeding greatness and goodness of God. That being the case, it’s not surprising that those who do not know God and have absolutely no idea how exceedingly great he is[1] cannot understand either aspect concerning Him.

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Pastors: Please paint precise word pictures

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“This is my body which is given for you.” Luke 22:19 ESV

As important as alliteration in attracting attention, is the precision with which we use our words of wisdom offered to the world. The book of James includes a warning to teachers, which we do well to take as a reminder to be accurate in our teaching:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
James 3.1

I know you’re busy as pastors and teachers, so let me get straight to the point. We need to be careful about how we describe the biblical accounts, and we should be more precise in our language regarding the Lord’s Supper. Continue Reading

Q.20 Science tells us how to build airplanes, religion tells people to fly them into buildings

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The second plane heads for then hits the south tower of the WTC 9/11/01

The second plane heads for then hits the south tower of the WTC 9/11/01

The prophet Hosea records a lament from God: “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”(Hosea 4:6) I was struct by the lack of knowledge and perception exhibited in this question. In Hosea’s day, because the people were so ignorant of God and his ways, he rejected and punished them. Lest you fall into the same judgment, let me clear up the two glaring errors in this statement. Continue Reading

Q.46 The Gospels were created by a “Telephone” game process that turned a real person named Jesus into a god

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Mark records the teachings of the Apostle Peter

Mark records the teachings of the Apostle Peter

Since this concerns the game “Telephone”, let me ask, have you ever played the game? As I recall it, this is how it was played at a summer camp I went to in my youth many years ago. The proctor created two teams and lined them up. Then he split each team so there’s a short distance between the two halves of the team. There were two teams, each team with members in a line and the line separated in the middle by a short distance. The opposing teams were far away enough so they couldn’t hear what the other team was saying. 

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Q.60 Religion shouldn’t give anyone the right to refuse service

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Cakes for Traditional couples only

The full question (or in this case statement) is: Religion shouldn’t give anyone the right to refuse service to people just because they disagree with them. I asked ChatGPT to summarize the case of the Christian baker who refused to bake a gay-themed cake because it went against his Christian convictions. Here are some excerpts: Continue Reading

A Great Awakening – A Review

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George Whitefield on the court house balcony - scene from

George Whitefield on the court house Balcony in “A Great Awakening“

In the late 1980’s and early 90s, David Mains, host of “The Chapel of The Air“, (a brief, daily Christian radio broadcast) did a series on revival. His message was so clear and he repeated the point so many times, I can remember to this day how he defined revival: “The overwhelming sense of the presence of God.”[1] That sense, when it falls on God’s people who have become lethargic in the faith, following a religion with little or no expression in life, going through the motions of a religious life robotically with no feeling or emotion; when such experience an awakening, they manifest one or a number of profound changes when the presence of God is felt.

According to Revival Comes To Wales[2], the types of changes seen when the presence of God is sensed include: Continue Reading

The Understated, Misunderstood King of the Jews

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Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews
A Resurrection Day Meditation

“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
(Zec 9:9)

“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.
(Mark 15:2)

I write this on Palm Sunday, the day we remember when Jesus made a triumphal entry into the Jerusalem. It  is estimated that over a million pilgrims and residents[1] were there in the city for the coming Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. (Mk 14.1) As Jesus approached, the people shouted:

9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest!”
Mark 11.9-10

Why were the people so excited? What was it that seemed to put electricity in the air? In short, it was the messianic hope of the people. The people recognized Jesus as the son of David. They knew the messiah would be the son of David. They also knew the prophecy in Zechariah about the messiah coming on a donkey. Perhaps most of all, they were all aware of the King David, whose military career was not only legendary, but they assumed such exploits would be repeated by the messiah to come since he would be the “son of David”. Even in David’s day the people chanted about his prowess in battle: Continue Reading

Should Christians Believe Relativity? Einstein and the Bogeyman

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Einstein ponders matter curving space

Einstein ponders matter curving space

Should Christians believe Einstein’s theories (there are two) of Relativity? Should anyone? Since I haven’t seen any scientists oppose the theory (test it, yes; oppose no), I have always assumed that pretty much everyone accepted Einstein’s General and Special Relativity. That’s the position I was writing from when about a decade ago I wrote an article about how people can be convinced to move from believing something is impossible, to believing that that very thing is not only possible, but true. The article is titled Science and the Paradox of the Unbelievable.

The article uses as its illustration the change in the understanding of how gravity works which was ushered in by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. It starts with the original concept of gravity, formulated by the person many consider to be the father of modern science, Isaac Newton, and went on to show how Newton’s understanding, based in straight forward Euclidean space and standard time, which passes at a steady, unchanging rate, has given way to a new concept of gravity formulated by Albert Einstein in his theory of General Relativity. The point in that article was that many concepts that are common in Einstein’s theory of General Relativity were previously considered impossible and thus inconceivable, particularly to those with a good understanding of Newtonian dynamics.

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